Questions and answers about English usage

Via The New Yorker, a definitive judgment from Mary Norris, the Comma Queen: The Singular “Their”. Click or tap through for a short video.

Last year, at the convention of the American Copy Editors Society (ACES), in Pittsburgh, everyone was talking about “the singular ‘their.’ ” It is the people’s choice for the gender-neutral third-person-singular pronoun that the English language sadly lacks.

Many ACES stalwarts—copy editors, journalists, grammarians, lexicographers, and linguists—stand ready to embrace the singular “their.” But not us. We avoid it whenever we can.

Today, March 4th, the only date of the year that forms a full sentence—March forth!—we wish everyone (and his or her brother and/or sister) a Happy National Grammar Day!